Exclusive: Hollyoaks bosses reveal secrets behind Cindy, Imran and Ste twist

Hollyoaks spoilers follow.

Hollyoaks producers Hannah Cheers and Si Wall have spoken exclusively to Digital Spy after the show finally revealed the truth behind Ste Hay's disappearance.

Monday's special episode (19 October) confirmed that secret lovers Imran Maalik and Cindy Cunningham were responsible for Ste going missing – motivated by revenge after the damage he'd caused to their respective families over the years.

Imran and Cindy's flashback special told the story of how their relationship started when they crossed paths in LA – and how they schemed together upon returning to the village. This included framing James Nightingale, who has his own troubled history with the Maaliks.

In real life, the Hollyoaks team have been working on this storyline for several months – tying up years of backstory into an intriguing mystery for fans to follow.

Here, Hannah and Si exclusively reveal the behind-the-scenes secrets for the first time…

Hi, Hannah and Si! Was this twist always your plan when you brought Cindy and Imran back to the show earlier this year?

Si: "Yes, we always knew that this would be the plan. Although originally our idea was for it to be this big rug-pull shocking twist! It still is, but we imagined that they'd be snogging each other's faces off in an alleyway or something like that!

"As we worked on the idea more, it felt a bit more authentic and real – given the other stories that both characters have been in – to make it more tinged with tragedy."

How would you describe the feelings between Cindy and Imran?

Si: "As much as Cindy clearly has feelings for Imran and obviously cares for him, we've seen in the episode that he would do anything for her – or what he thinks is for her, even if it's illegal or nefarious!

"We've all been in a relationship where you might care more about the person than they care about you – and you're willing to go slightly out of your comfort zone to extremes. Not necessarily always abducting people from shopping centres, though!"

How easy was it to keep this twist under wraps?

Hannah: "One secret is that Maddox's connection to Cindy was literally created as a storyline to distract, so that nobody would be looking at Cindy and Imran together like that! We always had Cindy busy doing something else, so that you wouldn't be looking for it.

"We created a completely different tone when we came up with Cindy's backstory involving Beth and Maddox. I'm delighted we did that, though, as it's left us with a massive legacy."

When you tell a story like this, do you hope some fans figure it out?

Si: "We've been quite surprised actually, because we thought more people would have guessed the connection between Cindy and Imran! We'd hoped that some people would guess and some fans have, but there have been a lot of rogue theories in the mix too.

"People love to be shocked and that's one thing, but people also love to be right and say: 'I told you so!' There's not an infinite number of characters in the show, so there's always going to be someone who guesses."

Hannah: "The timing was the crucial part, because we wanted the reveal to come quite quickly following the point where you might have guessed it."

Ste is a well-loved character, but Cindy and Imran's motivations are also understandable. Where do you hope the audience's sympathies lie?

Si: "The interesting thing about this story is there are quite a lot of grey areas. There are no real overt villains or heroes. Ste is a well-loved character but he's also done a lot of bad things.

"The far-right story was a big one for us and although Ste went to Prevent and was redeemed in the eyes of the village, Imran went through that in his formative years and I think it absolutely would stay with him.

"Obviously, there's all the history with James and Kashif too. Personally, I can understand Imran's motivations and I think some of the audience will as well.

"In terms of Ste, I think people want him to be found alive and well. We now know who was responsible, but we still don't know where Ste is or what's happening with him..."

How challenging was it to tie together so many storylines from the past few months and years?

Hannah: "There were a lot of late-night phone calls!"

Si: "It's been a massive collaborative effort. We've had lots of trackers and people having to remember certain information. There have been moments that might have seemed a bit insignificant at the time, like Imran's stammer on the boat when he was talking about how much he loved Leah. We knew that Cindy was there and that was obviously filmed at the same time."

Was there an inspiration behind telling a mystery story like this?

Hannah: "We wanted to try something different, to tell you the truth. We were inspired by the absolute phenomenon of the Harlan Coben shows that are absolutely lapped up on Netflix. You watch those and they are very Hollyoaks with the hooks that keep you guessing. So we wanted to tell a story with clues, twists and turns that would go into different territories before we'd come to the answer.

"We knew the target would be Ste and then we had to decide who the culprit would be. We decided that it needed to be a matter of the heart, so we came back to the Ella story – something that Ste has never paid for.

"That's why we needed Cindy back. Her return to the show literally came from searching for the answer to a mystery that we wanted to tell. Then we wondered if Ijaz [Rana, who plays Imran] would come back and it all married together."

How did you approach the red herrings?

Si: "We did have some red herrings – like Zack, who was Leah's stalker – but the culprit was never going to be a random person! But if we didn't have those misdirects and red herrings, I think we would have had to air the reveal a lot earlier on!"

Can Imran come back from this?

Si: "I think it could go in a number of different ways. He's obviously got the capability to do some pretty bad things. Equally, I think deep down he's a good boy who fell in love with the wrong person and has made some bad decisions. It's obviously informed by the trauma that's happened in his life."

Can you tell us about why you also involved Lucas?

Si: "Lucas and Imran have some similarities, because they've both got massive daddy issues. Imran lost his dad early and he blames James for that, just like his brother Sami did, while Lucas has had the child-to-parent abuse story.

"We wanted to give Lucas a redemption arc, but we didn't want to do it in a traditional way. He has been to therapy and he has done his time, but we wanted to really make it look like he'd gone to the edge of darkness.

"Lucas was the final red herring. Hopefully people are quite relieved when they realise that he isn't a bad guy – he's actually being manipulated by Imran."

How did you approach filming an LA episode from the regular studios in Liverpool?

Si: "We've got a really good design team! Part of the episode was filmed outside the old youth club, which at one point was also the courthouse. It's got a mezzanine at the top. We filmed the episode during the summer, so luckily it was actually quite sunny. There's also been lots of work done to grade the footage, so there's great editing too!"

Did the painting mean anything?

Si: "One of the best shows of all time is The Sopranos, so it was inspired by the scene where Tony Soprano goes to his first therapy session and gets really thrown by a picture on the wall. It was never mentioned again and it wasn't the story.

"For this, it worked as something that brought Cindy and Imran together. Essentially it's just a bit of a rubbish picture on the wall that must mean something to someone! (Laughs.) It was nice storytelling to just bookend the episode with the picture, which had now taken on a completely different meaning.

"When Cindy dared Imran to steal the picture, he bought it and said that he'd stolen it. That established the nature of what their relationship would be – short-lived though it was – as they'd push each other to do slightly risky and out-of-the-box things. Imran obviously then took that notion to the next level with the abduction of Ste…"

Hollyoaks airs on Mondays-Wednesdays with its Channel 4 streaming premiere at 7am, then an E4 broadcast the same night at 7pm. Full episodes are also released on YouTube a week after their Channel 4 release.

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